Baku Tbilisi Kars railway construction accelerated

Construction work on the new Baku Tbilisi Kars railway, designed to connect Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey's transport systems, is continuing at a rapid pace. This was stated by Azerbaijani Minister of Transport Ziya Mammadov during his speech at the meeting of Cabinet of Ministers. This meeting recently took place chaired by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and was dedicated to the results of social and economic development within the first nine months of 2012 and to the future.

According to the minister, the road construction with a length of 5.2 kilometres at the Akhalkalaki district on the border with Turkey has been ompleted. Construction work is currently underway in this district.

Also the construction of railway buildings at Akhalkalaki and Kartsakhi stations with a150 metres long bridge located along a 101-103 kilometres stretch of the road, and a 4.2 kilometres long tunnel on the border with Turkey and Georgia are in progress. Construction work on revamping a 153 kilometres long area of Marabda Akhalkalaki is underway.

Mammadov's reported that work on the road construction has continued for nine months in Azerbaijan. Some 362.8 kilometres of road have been constructed during this period, 77.5 of them are roads of important to the republic whilst 285.3 kilometres are of a local importance.

Some 11 bridges have been constructed over highways from January to September. Roughly 400 new large and middle sized buses have been purchased during the nine months. Some 1085 taxi cars have also been supplied to the country during this period.